GoPro halts sale of HERO5 camera on Amazon

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

(Reuters) - Wearable camera maker GoPro Inc (GPRO.O) said on Thursday it temporarily stopped selling its latest HERO5 camera model on Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) in the United States as the company negotiates pricing with the online retailer.

GoPro’s shares fell as much as 3.8 percent, on track for its worst six-day drop since May.

The company will resume supplying to Amazon at the end of the month or in early November, a GoPro spokeswoman said.

“Most likely, GoPro is temporarily, but intentionally, not shipping to Amazon following a not-uncommon pricing squabble, when a retailer lists the product below the agreed-upon floor price,” said Longbow Research analyst Joe Wittine.

A number of retailers, including Best Buy Inc (BBY.N) and Target Corp (TGT.N), match prices for products on e-commerce platforms like Amazon.

GoPro launched a slew of products last month, including the HERO5 Black and HERO5 Session cameras and the Karma drone, ahead of the crucial holiday season.

GoPro depends on Amazon for about 12-14 percent of its total revenue, said Piper Jaffray analyst Errin Murphy. The company receives more than half of its revenue from the United States.

However, some analysts said the concerns may be premature.

“September or early October is a slow sales month anyway as people gear up for the holiday season,” said Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz.

He said the temporary nature of the issue should have very little effect on the company.

The company’s shares fell to $13.75 on Thursday. The stock had fallen more than 15 percent in the last five trading sessions.

Reporting by Narottam Medhora and Aishwarya Venugopal in Bengaluru; Editing by Don Sebastian and Sriraj Kalluvila